Episode 11

[liam]

From Mark

So....I saw that you read my PM asking you for complete honesty. I was completely honest with you.

Let's figure out why you've never made merge until now.

1) You don't try and get someone to work with them, and then say you can't make any promises, which means you can assure them 5th or 6th. You promise them the moon! File that one away.

2) You don't outright tell someone people don't trust them.

3) And using the elusive, nameless "people" sends up more red flags than anything else. Nameless people means, you either don't have the guts to play this game, or there are no people, you are just grasping at straws.

4) By ignoring a message, you flat out tell someone that something else is going on.

File all these away. I know this may sound condescending, and it is, because I suppose I have nothing else to lose at this point. But they really are helpful hints. Trust me on them.

Now, I don't know how many fans are sticking with me, if any at all, but our target was Carly. I rather like her. But in the short amount of time I have, I think I may have to get the vote changed to you.

That's essentially what you've just told me through all this. So I'll leave you with that.

Terrific jury management skills there.

My response:

Well played on the idol Mark.

I try not to make promises that sound utterly ridiculous, so I don't promise the moon unless the other person would have a reason to believe that I can and would offer them the moon. In other words, a fake moon offer seems counter productive because of how fake it is. My offer was simple, come to our side and if you can manage to make the end you'd have a decent chance. How you'd get there, I don't know, but that was the offer. It was made far before we decided to vote for you.

Quite frankly, I thought saying that I totally trusted you would have been more suspicious then telling you the truth as I knew you had to be smart enough to recognize that we wouldn't trust you without some sort of evidence that you were on our side.

I've never claimed to be the best at this game and in fact I am well aware of my shortcomings. I'm better at math than people.

So, congratulations with the idol. I was worried about it, but somewhat ironically, Chad said not to worry.

You have the upper hand now, so if you decide to vote me out, I'm not sure there's much I can do other than try my best to win immunity.

If however, you think I'm so bad at this game, feel free to keep me as a goat. Or to use me as a vote.

Keep me around until you need me and I will vote on your side. You want a name, keep Ben too. If you don't think you can make it to the end with the fans, keep me and I will keep my mouth shut and my head down until you're ready to overthrow them.

You don't have to like me, you don't have to respect me. However, I am totally willing to be used if it means surviving longer in this game.

It's 6-5 currently. If you want to wait until it's 6-2 or 6-3 to make a move, then I can sit and wait. If you want to keep the other fans over me, I'm not sure what I can do about that.

If you've been on the outs with the fans the whole time, then we know that they'll just call you a goat if you make it to the end. You can trust me, not because I'm some sort of super trustworthy person, but because this is in my own best interests.

We'll see what happens. I just don't see why some people feel the need to rub it in other people's faces. It's a game, chill out.

[ellen]

I love you Liam!

[liam]

Thank you Ellen.

I figured I'd update everyone on what's happened.

Mark's Response:

First off...I'd like to say that I didn't get any sleep last night. Stepping outside of the game and the mask of Mark, I can honestly say my message was uncalled for and out of line. Your response was very humbling. There were a couple of reasons for sending that message but I apologize for taking it a step too far by criticizing your game skills. At the heat of the moment my pride was hurt that you came to me, then basically telegraphed to me that I was getting the favorite votes. I always get annoyed when "people" is used. But that doesn't excuse me insulting you.

I'm going to be honest and say that I was telling you the truth about Chad' s plans. What I wasnt honest about was how I knew. I made it up (stupidly) that he sent the message to me by mistake. I can't tell you how I came about the info but it was legit. The main reason I sent you that last message was one I had my gut.feeling you guys were voting me, I was certain Chad might know he was the counter target and could possibly be using an idol or be.given one. I wanted to rattle you into thinking the target could switch and you could use it on yourself.

That's just a little bit into my head. I hope you can accept my apology and know that none of this is really me, whether we get to know our true identities after this game or not.

My response to that

Thank you for the apology Mark.

In terms of telegraphing who we were voting for, I had actually decided what message to send you before we had even decided we were going to vote for you.

As for the Chad information, I had sort of figured out that you must have gotten it from someone else. I'm not sure that you considered the possibility that I could believe you and believe that Chad was lying to the Farrago members. You did have me convinced though for a little bit. As I said though, we needed 6 votes, and I didn't want to put my head on the line when it looked like that was impossible, and I had kind of worked out that it wasn't what it seemed.

Also, I didn't even know that you could see if people responded to your messages. I was just feeling mentally worn out after a hard round and wanted to be done with it. You asked for more information, it looked like fishing, I just wanted it to go away.

We're both just playing a game here. You did a good move, you got your side a majority and the game continues. This game can easily mentally wear you down, and that's why I typically take breaks in between playing them. I had to just text a friend and watch a movie to get away from everything yesterday. My mind was going into overdrive with the vote, and I needed to be doing something else.

So, apology accepted, but I am going to take this opportunity to be slightly preachy. You don't get to make the same mistakes multiple times, otherwise they are patterns that you just aren't taking responsibility for.

I really do appreciate you taking the time to apologize. I tend to say too much, so I'll stop there.

I do hope that Mark is being sincere and not just trying to make up for the sake of the game. This isn't for money, or anything like that, so I hope he is actually being genuine. One of the hardest parts about this game is even when you are "outside of it", you still aren't.

Having just watched the season finale (massive spoiler warning), I'd like to compare myself in certain ways to Cochran. I'm more athletic than him and thoroughly enjoy sports, but in many ways I am the self-conscious, somewhat awkward guy who spends his free time playing online games of Survivor.

Having started at a new school this year, I faced difficulties connecting with people and you all saw that I had a bit of a breakdown on the board by the end of it because this game gets stressful. It is a long brutal game, where after a month of playing, others can suddenly decide that you don't get to be a part of it anymore.

I'm in a better space than I was in S3, but I'm still fundamentally the same person. A little bit better at Survivor in my opinion, but still the same kind of guy who doesn't take malicious criticism well. I think I put a lot of investment in the difference between things like saying, "Liam made a dumb move" vs. "Liam was dumb".

In my opinion, I did not make dumb moves, I made moves to seem as realistic as possible, and nobody would believe me saying, "Oh yeah, we're totally with you to vote Chad". Maybe we should have voted Starr instead, but that's hard to know in the moment, and I'm not going to beat myself up on it.

In case you guys don't know, Here's what I originally told Mark

I'll be honest, people don't know if they can trust you. So, there are two main options for you. You can vote however the fans are voting and take your shot with them. Or, you can vote for anybody else and take your shot with us.

I realize this isn't the most satisfying answer, but it's all I can really offer you at this point. Sorry.

I don't think he understood that I never was offering him a chance at the end with me. I was offering him a chance to make it further and try to flip some favorites when the time came. Yeah, he would have been 7th in my plan, but it would give him the opportunity to switch things up. If he wanted to be like Chris from Amazon (I think) he could potentially win that way. Not likely, but possible.

I wasn't offering the moon, I was offering the smallest of opportunities to somebody who claimed to need them.

In any case, I'm still in the game, we still have an idol and as long as I'm still here I'm going to try to win.

Unfortunately, I have finals, so the time commitment on this challenge is just not going to happen. Since I can't put in the effort to win, it's better to spend my time on other things.

Hopefully, we can find out who they are voting for (likely me or Carly), and play an idol, then redo the whole tie thing again.

I also told Ben that Gloria has an idol, but he already knew that. At least we both know that we can keep a secret. Well, at least we both know that Ben can keep a secret. I enjoy talking to Ben, he's the only one I would trust in this game, and since I'm apparently considered one of the leaders of Admontio (along with Carly), I might even be able to beat him in the finals.

That's Liam, somewhat conflicted at times, but always thinking about the game.

Anyways, here's your 6500 character post for the day. You didn't think you'd go a whole season without one from me, did you?

[a hot fucking mess]

Chris from Vanuatu. Not Amazon.

[liam]

Well, that just makes winning Survivor Amazon even more impressive for him

[liam]

Yeah, so I'm feeling pretty confident I'm not going, because Starr told me I wasn't going, and I jokingly asked Knox if he wanted to vote with us. He said no, but that he wouldn't vote for me if I didn't vote for him. It was just one of those quick jokes that seemed believable to me.